Built by an operatorwho has used machine learning to run the business.
Helps mid-market mobile, retail and membership organisations get more value from the money they already spend on customers and members.
Change the work before you change the technology.
Formalus designs the commercial change and builds the case for investment. Your leadership team owns the decisions. Your technology partner builds the technical solution.
Most organisations already spend enough. The question is whether it is working.
Mobile operators spend heavily on winning and keeping customers. Retailers give away margin through promotions. Membership bodies invest in recruitment, engagement and renewal. In each case, activity can rise without the result improving.
AI is making forecasts and analysis easier to obtain. The return depends on which decisions change, how teams act on them and who is responsible for them.
Formalus works with mid-market leadership teams to find where that spending can work harder, redesign the work around it, build the case for investment and measure what it returns.
I have done this work from the inside, with the P&L on the line.
For twenty-five years, I held senior commercial operating roles across mobile, retail, subscription software, financial services and technology. In most of them, data science and machine learning were part of how the business was run, not a side project.
Churn scoring and automated customer value management.
At O2, I was accountable for the £1.8bn Pay & Go P&L. At Vodafone, I led commercial growth across international mobile markets, and in the UK our share of new customer acquisition volume moved from fourth to second in six months.
Machine-learning promotions and real-time dynamic pricing.
I led European marketing and analytics across around 800 stores and 19 websites, with €2.5bn of regional sales. My team of 42 data scientists assessed the return on retail and online promotions and built the pricing models.
Subscription renewal and growth.
I led marketing across EMEA for a subscription business with 71 million customers, where eleven quarters of decline became eight of growth.
Machine-learning credit and fraud risk decisioning.
I built the services and the European go-to-market around them, deployed at HSBC, Santander and Barclays.
What it taught me: better analysis only pays when it changes what the business does.
Mobile. A lower churn rate is not a better result if keeping customers costs more than they are worth.
Retail. A promotion can lift sales and still lose money.
Membership. A renewal campaign can reach every member and change nothing.
I established Formalus to bring that operating discipline to AI: start with the money, change the work, then apply AI where it earns its place.
Formalus focuses on mid-market mobile operators, multi-site retailers and membership organisations. Mobile and retail are where I have run this work myself. Member renewal follows the same logic as subscription renewal at Norton, and I am now applying it with Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce.
See the industries and sizes where Formalus fits best →
Separately, I led two independent transformation programmes for DHL Service Logistics across EMEA and Asia Pacific, redesigning how customer issues were resolved. The customer journey was validated before the digital investment was defined.
Accountable for the results in mobile, retail, subscription and financial services.
General Manager, Vice President and C-suite roles with responsibility for customer growth, retention and profitability across international markets.
25years
General Manager, Vice President and C-suite operating roles.
£24bnrevenue
Cumulative revenue under direct accountability.
4th → 2ndin six months
UK share of new customer acquisition volume at Vodafone.
JD Poweraward
Award for customer experience at consumer scale.
Michael Williamson’s operating profile
Two pages covering executive commercial responsibility, operating results, machine-learning experience and the background behind Formalus.
See the programme results, current work and evidence standards behind the track record. See the evidence →
Commercial leadership. Enterprise experience. Independent judgement.
Formalus brings together commercial operating experience, independent transformation advice and an enterprise mindset informed by senior leadership in cybersecurity, identity and data.
That combination matters because lasting AI value needs more than promising technology. It needs an understanding of commercial performance, customer journeys, how the organisation works, trusted information, security and the economics of running it all at scale.
General Manager and Vice President roles at O2, Vodafone and Staples, with P&L accountability, and independent transformation work for DHL.
Why it matters: it is where the work starts. Finding why commercial performance falls short, redesigning how the business works, and putting investment where the return is measurable.
Vice President of Marketing, EMEA, at Symantec (Norton), a global cybersecurity company.
Why it matters: an executive view of how security, risk and trust shape customer decisions, and of the security implications of technology and AI-enabled change.
Chief Products & Marketing Officer, Europe, at Equifax, a global data, credit and identity business, with machine-learning decisioning in live credit and fraud decisions.
Why it matters: decisions are only as reliable as the data, identity and access controls behind them. The same is true of every AI-enabled process.
Building services for, and taking them to, major organisations, including tier-one banks, and meeting their requirements for data, risk and governance.
Why it matters: an understanding of what enterprise executives expect before they approve a change, and of what it takes to earn that approval.
Experience that underpins the Formalus approach.
The three sectors sit on one integrated perspective: commercial operating judgement, supported by cybersecurity, identity and data disciplines. They shape how every engagement is assessed and designed. They are not separate services. See how the approach works →
Commercial AI Transformation
AI-enabled operating models for better business performance
- Mobile OperatorsMobile Customer Value & Retention
- Multi-site RetailRetail Margin & Promotion Performance
- Membership OrganisationsMembership Value & Retention
Enterprise-wide AI-enabled operating models
- Customer journeys
- Process redesign
- Connected agentic workflows
- Commercial value realisation
- Enterprise discipline Cybersecurity & Enterprise Control Leadership heritage: Symantec Security · Risk · Governance · Operational resilience
- Enterprise discipline Identity, Data & Governance Leadership heritage: Equifax Trusted data · Identity · Access · Information governance
Independent commercial judgement & operator experience
Change the work before you change the technology.
Symantec and Equifax are Michael Williamson’s previous employers. They are not Formalus clients, partners or endorsers.
Leaders in all three sectors on working with Michael.
“Michael is a strong, seasoned leader with excellent customer vision – and able to turn that into tangible commercial plans. Transformed Vodafone’s thinking about prepay mobile in a very short timeframe. Made a major impact across Vodafone’s operations across EMEA. One of the very best.”
“Michael has one of the strongest strategic minds that I have come across in business. He demonstrated a great ability to analyse and understand customer needs and experience particularly in a complex multichannel environment.
Michael is also a great listener to not only customers but his teams and colleagues which made him a trusted colleague.”
“The work identified and prioritised the biggest commercial opportunities, helping us focus on the areas with the greatest potential business impact. Michael then helped us shape the high-level commercial design for the future operating model, working back from the business outcomes we wanted to achieve so the commercial requirements were defined before technology decisions were made.”
The technology you need, when you need it. Not what we are paid to sell.
Every transformation needs technology. The question is which, when and in what order. Formalus does not sell software, licences or build work, so the recommendation follows your business case rather than a sales target, and you are not pushed down a technology-first route. Platform-first advice starts with what a product can do; Formalus starts with the commercial result and works back to the technology, including what you already own.
Your chosen technology partner handles technical design and implementation. Any financial interest Formalus has in a referral or delivery arrangement is disclosed before you decide.
Where commissioned, Value Assurance protects the approved decisions through the build, and the Value Ledger then measures the value achieved after go-live. The two run in sequence and are never charged together.
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Commercial insights for mobile, retail and membership leaders on getting more from the money they already spend, and where AI genuinely helps. Delivered through LinkedIn.
Where could the money you already spend work harder?
Start with a Free AI Opportunity Assessment: a free 60-minute executive discussion, followed by a concise written assessment. We will look at the result you want to improve, the decisions behind it and whether there is an opportunity worth investigating.
Change the work before you change the technology.
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